Baltimore might spend $8.5M on properties it sold for $175,000

Baltimore officials have proposed buying back — at nearly 50 times the sales price — a swath of properties the city once owned decades ago to use them as apartments for the homeless.

The properties, situated between 407 and 417 N. Howard St., have been operating as the market rate Howard Row Apartments. City officials plan to use the 52 units as bridge housing for families as they transition to long-term subsidized housing.

The buildings are owned by companies tied to Columbia-based Poverni Sheikh Group, which rehabbed them starting in 2018. All but 14 apartments are occupied, said Jessica Robey, a spokesperson for the Mayor’s Office of Homeless Services. Units will be made available by the Mayor’s Office of Homeless Services as tenants move out, she said.

Baltimore’s spending board was expected to consider the $8.57 million purchase this week. Shortly before the Wednesday morning meeting, the vote was deferred at the request of City Administrator Faith Leach.

The purchase is now expected to be considered Oct. 21.

Behind the scenes, however, some city officials are concerned about the business interests of the area.

The apartments are above the only freshly renovated retail space on Howard Street, a once-thriving business corridor that has fallen into a state of perpetual decay.

Councilman Zac Blanchard, who represents the corridor, said he raised concerns to the administration about the location of the housing.

“This is an incredibly important way to support these families, and I fully support having it downtown,” Blanchard said of the proposed housing. “But the Howard Street commercial corridor is one of the most historic and brutally disinvested commercial corridors in the city, and probably the nicest retail space in the corridor is 407-415 North Howard.”

The buildings stand out amid their neighboring properties. Each has new windows, fresh paint and matching cornices. Storefronts on the opposite side of the street stand largely vacant, some covered in murals, others tagged with graffiti. A vacant lot in the block was strewn with trash.

Otis Rolley, president and CEO of the Baltimore Development Corp., which once controlled the properties, also asked city officials to delay the vote.

“Given that economic development is our core competency, we wanted to ensure we could provide the Board of Estimates with the best possible recommendation on the particulars of the deal, and we needed more time to do that,” Rolley said in a statement.

Blanchard said he had concerns about the purchase price. The turnkey apartments are advertised online as having granite countertops, stainless steel appliances, laminate floors and in-unit laundry.

For $8.5 million, potentially less, the city could pay to refurbish a nearby building from the ground up, Blanchard argued.

“I appreciate the urgency, but 50 units is not changing the situation of the city,” Blanchard said. “If it takes another six months to fix something up, then you’ve done meaningful work for a really disinvested neighborhood.”

If the city proceeds with the sale, it won’t be the first time Baltimore has owned the Howard Street properties. Land records show that the city bought the same buildings and lost money on them once before.

In 1998, Baltimore acquired all but one of the parcels from various owners for a total of $514,900. A sixth property was bought by the city in 2003, making the total purchase price $684,900.

Eleven years later, the Baltimore Development Corp. picked Poverni Sheikh to rehabilitate the dilapidated stretch. The company paid $175,000 for the properties after its plan to revitalize the buildings into modern apartments with ground floor retail space beat several competing proposals.

Then-Mayor Catherine Pugh attended the groundbreaking, and officials pledged to be a part of Howard Street’s renaissance.

Poverni Sheikh did not respond to a request for comment.

Conditions in the Howard Street corridor have continued to decline since. The apartments, which are advertised as “just north of Federal Hill,” sit three blocks north of the city-owned Superblock, which has bedeviled officials for decades. Last year, a five-alarm blaze destroyed 11 buildings on the two-block site, many of them historic.

Robey, the city’s homeless services spokesperson, said the city plans to use the properties for short-term housing — up to three months — for people in need of housing until they can find a subsidized unit. Families will receive priority placement in the apartments, which range from studios to two-bedroom units.

Robey said the Howard Street properties grew in value since their last sale due to the quality of the renovations.

CORE DC, which manages several city-owned hotels used as shelter space, is expected to manage the apartments, Robey said.

Initially spurred by health concerns during the pandemic, Baltimore has moved away from housing the city’s homeless population in traditional congregate shelters and instead favored hotel spaces.

In February 2024, Baltimore’s spending board approved an $18.4 million deal to buy the former Sleep Inn & Suites Downtown Inner Harbor and the Holiday Inn Express Baltimore-Downtown which are adjacent to each other along Interstate 83. The hotels have 132 beds between them.

In October 2025, a third hotel, the former Fairfield Inn & Suites on South President Street, was added to the portfolio for $13.3 million. That facility can house 145 women daily.